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Why Brexit doesn’t spell disaster for the streaming industry…

As each day ticks off Brexit discussions rumble on and progress moves painstakingly slowly. For months now we’ve been hearing how Brexit is going to impact the streaming industry, cause a mass migration of the talented EU nationals working in our industry, and threaten general mayhem and disruption. Every sector is rightly analysing the impact of potentially the biggest single change to the political landscape in several decades.

Being live event specialists means that an aversion to risk is part of our DNA. This naturally leads us to plan around the risk to our business and consider the wider implications to not only the streaming industry, but the entire ecosystem. At Groovy Gecko, in the instance of a possible ‘no-deal’ situation we don’t see there being a significant impact in the UK.

Here are some of the likely consequences and our reaction to them. Should the pound crash, we will become even cheaper than our European competitors and potentially could gain more business. Our customers have always had the additional comfort of being able to transact with Groovy Gecko as an EU registered subsidiary company, should they prefer. We are also working hard to anticipate any additional requirements for any GDPR, hosting and security changes that may be needed.

We believe we have not only followed best practice but are doing more than anyone in our industry to anticipate and have solutions ready to deploy should our clients require them. Therefore, we expect that we’ll be able to serve our existing UK and EU clients with complete continuity, regardless of the nature of Brexit. Practically, we have equipment deployed in sites in Europe so travel to site should remain straightforward and not hampered by customs costs and delays. We have increased our investment in and deployment of live cellular transmission and we anticipate more events will be broadcast via LiveU or satellite to our HUB if there are any issues. In short, our technology capacity has actually increased and we do not anticipate any service disruption. In this respect, it’s situation normal and business as usual.

There have been concerns raised about the impact on skills and employment. In terms of adding to our talented and skilled team here at Groovy it might accelerate our employment cycle. Other than that, we don’t see it having a major impact to our ability to recruit EU nationals.

We aren’t putting on rose tinted glasses here. We do recognise that the potential harm to the wider ecosystem of the creative industries may have a knock-on effect. If there are price increases (due to tariffs and duties) to the broadcast, AV and production industries then we may feel that impact. However, innovations to provide substitute workflows where possible and moving production functionality (such as graphics generation and overlays) will mitigate some of that risk in the medium term.

As was the case with GDPR, Brexit has been something we’ve been able to plan for and mitigate to an extent. By duplicating and housing essential equipment outside of the UK we’ve been able to enhance our scale and disaster recovery capabilities and that’s simply good practice.

There is no doubt that the biggest threat to the UK economy is uncertainty. We have elected to approach Brexit as an opportunity to innovate and anticipate our clients’ needs rather view Brexit than a hinderance. However this Brexit situation evolves we are prepared and poised to continue streaming for our clients globally. To borrow a phrase from our neighbours across the Channel, que será, será and we’re ready to deal with the outcome. With 20 years in the field of streaming we’ve weathered shifting landscapes and turbulent times before. We’re confident that our global reach and diverse services will continue to deliver top class results for our clients.

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